1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a planetary gear wheel construction.
In particular, the present invention concerns a planetary gear wheel construction of the type having one or several planetary gears that are bearing-mounted on a planet carrier which is provided in a rotating manner in a housing, and an oil lubrication formed of an oil supply via a ring-shaped channel in the housing which is formed of a ring-shaped groove and a distribution element turning along with the planet carrier held in a rotating manner in said groove and which is provided with a passage to connect said oil channel to an oil channel in the planet carrier opening at a planet wheel.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Such a gear wheel construction is known for example from document WO 03/078870 in the name of the applicant, whereby the above-mentioned distribution element is connected to a planet carrier in a fixed manner and turns along with this planet carrier in a ring-shaped groove of the housing with a U-shaped section.
The sealing between the ring-shaped distribution element and the ring-shaped groove is realized in the above-mentioned example by means of a labyrinth structure.
A disadvantage of this known gear wheel construction is that the sealing between the rotating distribution element and the stationary groove in the housing is very critical and can easily fail.
This is caused, among others, as sufficient play has to be provided between the rotating distribution element and the housing so as to absorbe small alignment errors during the mounting process as well as manufacturing tolerances.
The same disadvantage occurs in case of gear wheel constructions that are dimensioned such that large tensions in the gear wheel construction due to large loads are absorbed thanks to the flexibility of the gear wheel construction, such that deformations occur under the influence of the loads which have to be absorbed by the above-mentioned play.